Naked eye targets in Cygnus and Lyra

[pepitoz]

Here are a few naked eye targets in Cygnus and Lyra:

Find Cygnus and Lyra high to the east. Their brightest stars, Deneb and Vega, are part of an asterism called the Summer triangle. Altair is also part of the Summer triangle.

The Milky way passes directly though Cygnus - on a dark night it is very obvious. Just lay down and marvel at the huge number of stars.

The brightest star in Cygnus, Deneb, which is the top of an asterism known as the Northern Cross, is amazing - it is one of the furthest stars visible to the naked eye. It is also incredibly luminous - nearly 200 000 times the luminosity of the Sun! What a bright star! However, because of it's distance, it appears ''only'' 1st magnitude.

One of the best dark nebulae is in Cygnus - find it south of Deneb and Albireo (bottom of the Northern Cross). This is The Great Rift - it is actually made up of many dark clouds, but it appears only as one with the naked eye. It continues past Aquila and all the way towars Sagittarius - it's huge! It may be invisble in light polluted skies, but on a good dark night, it is amazing.

Another great dark nebula is Le Gentil 3 - find it by going one step from the middle star of the cross to Deneb and then one more step. It is smaller and harder to see than The Great Rift, but is still a nice sight.

Northwest of Deneb is a nice pair of 4th mag stars - Omicron 1 and 2 Cygni. They are easy to see even in light polluted skies.

There are two bright stars between the middle star of the cross and Albireo - the one closer to Albireo is Chi Cygni. If you try to find it now you won't see anything - that's because Chi Cygni is a pulsating variable - it's extremes are 3.3 and 14.3 - that means that at it's maxima it is easily visible to the naked eye, but when it is at it's minimum, you need a telescope to see it. The period is about 400 days. When it is at it's maxima, try for how long you can see it until it fades away. Notice it is reddish in color.

Another variable is X Cygni, a Cepheid - find it northwest of Epsilon Cygni and southwest of a 4th mag star. It varies from 5.8 to 7.6 in a period of 16 days. You can only see it when it's at maximum brightness. It seems like a new star appears when it brightens!

Lyra is small, but bright constellation. It's brightest star, Vega, is quite close - only 25 light years. While it it significanly less luminous than Deneb, it appears brighter - that is because of the brightness difference.

East of Vega is a close pair of stars - Epsilon Lyrae. They are a challenge to split because of how close they are - 208 arcseconds. Each of the stars is a double itself, but they need a telescope to be split. This is a binary system, no an optical double -  the pairs orbit a common centre of mass. One orbit takes thousands of years.

Look between Vega and Albireo, then west. There you will find a pair of stars - the one to the west is Beta Lyrae. It is a great variable - the extremes are 3.4 and 4.3 for a period of 13 days. When it is at it's maximum, Beta Lyrae is nearly as bright as the star to the east.

Check these targets out while you can!

[cotterless45]

Neat ! There's great things just seen by eye , before reaching out for more aperture,

Nick.